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Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson

Tony Pearson is a Master Inventor and Senior IT Specialist for the IBM System Storage product line at the
IBM Executive Briefing Center in Tucson Arizona, and featured contributor
to IBM's developerWorks. In 2011, Tony celebrated his 25th year anniversary with IBM Storage on the same day as the IBM's Centennial. He is
author of the Inside System Storage series of books. This blog is for the open exchange of ideas relating to storage and storage networking hardware, software and services. You can also follow him on Twitter @az990tony.
(Short URL for this blog: ibm.co/Pearson
)

This Thursday, June 16, 2011, marks IBM's Centennial 100 year anniversary. It happens to also be my 25th anniversary with IBM Storage. To avoid conflicts in celebrations, we decided to celebrate my induction into the "Quarter Century Club" (QCC) last Friday instead.

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My colleague Harley Puckett was master of ceremonies. Here he is presenting me with a memorial plaque and keychain. Harley mentioned a few facts about 1986, the year I started working for IBM. Ronald Reagan was the US President, gasoline cost only 93 cents per gallon, and the US National Debt was only 2 trillion US dollars!

Here are my colleagues from DFSMShsm. From left to right: Ninh Le, Henry Valenzuela, Shannon Gallaher, and Stan Kissinger. I started in 1986 as aa software developer on DFHSM, and slowly worked my way up to be a lead architect of DFSMS.

Here are my colleagues from Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). From left to right: Matt Anglin, Ken Hannigan and Mark Haye. I first met them when they worked in DFDSS, having moved from San Jose, CA down to Tucson. While I never worked on the TSM code itself, I did co-author some of the patents used in the product and other products like the 3494 Virtual Tape Server that makes use of TSM internally. I also traveled extensively to promote TSM, often with a TSM developer tagging along so they can learn the ropes about how to travel and make presentaitons.

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Here are my colleagues from the disk team. From left to right: Joe Bacco, Carlos Pratt, Gary Albert, and Siebo Friesenborg. I worked on the SMI-S interface for the ESS 800 and DS8000 disk systems needed for the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. Joe leads the "Disk Magic" tools team. Carlos and I worked on qualifying the various disk products to run with Linux on System z host attachment. Gary Albert is the Business Line Executive (BLE) of Enterprise Disk. Siebo Friesenborg was a disk expert on performance and disaster recovery, but is now enjoying his retirement.

Here are my colleagues from the support team. From left to right: Max Smith, Dave Reed, and Greg McBride. I used to work in Level 2 Support for DFSMS with Max and Dave, carrying a pager and managing the queue on RETAIN. We had enough people so that each Level 2 only had to carry the pager two weeks per year. On Monday afternoons, the person with the pager would give it to the next person on the rotation. On Monday, September 10, 2001, I got the pager, and the following morning, it went off to help all the many clients affected by the September 11 tragedy.

I worked with Greg McBride when he was in DFSMS System Data Mover (SDM), and then again in Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication (TPC-R), and now he is supporting IBM Scale-Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS).

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Standing in the light blue striped shirt is Greg Van Hise, my first office-mate and mentor when I first joined IBM. He went on to be part of the elite "DFHSM 2.4.0" prima donna team, then move on to be an architect for Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM).

I wasn't limited to inviting just coworkers, I was also able to invite friends and family. Here are Monica, Richard, and my mother. Normally, my parents head south for the summer, but they postponed their flights so that they could participate in my QCC celebration.

From left to right: my father, Greg Tevis, and myself. It was pure coincidence that my father would wear a loud darkly patterned shirt like mine. Honestly, we did not plan this in advance. Greg Tevis and I were lead architects for the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center, and Greg is now the Technology Strategist for the Tivoli Storage product line.

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Here is Jack Arnold, fellow subject matter expert who works with me here at the Tucson Executive Briefing Center, sampling the food. We had quite the spread, including egg rolls, meatballs, luncheon meats, chicken strips, and fresh vegetables.

More colleagues from the Tucson Executive Briefing Center, from left to right, Joe Hayward, Lee Olguin, and Shelly Jost. Joe was a subject matter expert on Tape when I first joioned the EBC in 2007, but he has moved back to the Tape development/test team. Lee is our master "Gunny" sargeant to manage all of our briefing schedules. Shelly is our Client Support Manager, and was the one who organized all the food and preparations for this event!

Lastly, here are Brad Johns, myself, and Harley Puckett. Brad was my mentor for my years in Marketing, and has since retired from IBM and now works on his golf game. I would like to thank all of the Tucson EBC staff for pulling off such a great event, and all my coworkers, friends and family for coming out to celebrate this milestone in my career!

In addition to the plaque and keychain, Harley presented me with a book of congratulatory letters. If you would like to send a letter, it's not too late, contact Mysti Wood (mysti@us.ibm.com).